Why do many alpine plants have larger flowers than leaves or stems when they bloom?

In order to reproduce, "Years of accumulation will be exhausted in one time"; why is Meconopsis spinosa so hard?

Because "If you don't want to be eaten, just have a bit of a prick"... The popular science speech made by the popular expert @顾有容 is so humorous and vivid. The popular logic of the web.

@顾有容 daily publishes popular science articles and records popular science videos on the Internet, introduces all aspects of botany, and has gained many loyal fans.

@顾有容 at work

  Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Kong Xiaoping

Popular science should be cut from the angle that everyone loves to hear

  @顾有容, whose real name is Gu Lei, is an associate professor in the School of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University. He is also a member of the Chinese Science Writers Association, a member of the Science Squirrel Association, a scientific consultant of the Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, a director of the China Wild Plant Protection Association, and his research routine It is dealing with plants.

"I have loved biology since I was a child. After I went to college, I saw the Chinese Higher Plants Illustrated Book in the school library. This is a set of reference books on plant taxonomy. At that time, I felt like'good, this is the end of my life.'"

  His research direction is the classification and systematic evolution of plants, which is the oldest branch in botany. At the same time, he is also trying to answer the ultimate question in botany—that is, how does plant diversity evolve.

  The reporter has seen his speech "Meconopsis, Snow Rabbit, Gentian... Why are the flowers on the mountains more charming?"

"Alpine plants are his research field.

He told reporters that in the eyes of ordinary people, the flowers on the mountains are particularly beautiful, and for him, this is a scientific problem.

"The beauty of plants on the mountains is actually some traits that have evolved to adapt to special habitats. How did they evolve? How do they interact with the environment? These are some questions I need to explore."

  "In this age, when doing popular science, you can't copy scientific literature directly. That's too blunt. You must cut it from the angle that everyone likes." @顾有容 said, human nature is to care about eating, drinking, and wearing, so he When doing science popularization, you have to think of ways to cut through from these angles, so that people can read it. For example, he just wrote an article "桫 (suō) 椤: Before pinching my leaves to stir-fry, can you say my name?"

", many people are curious to click in and take a look.

The flowering of alpine plants is comparable to "the accumulation for many years, once exhausted"

  For many people, understanding biological knowledge requires a threshold, but @顾有容's popular science makes people feel that they are listening to the story, having a strong sense of substitution, and understanding the knowledge points in a simple way.

  In daily life, when we go to a flower shop to buy flowers, our first impression is that there are more red and white flowers.

@顾有容 said that the mainstream color of alpine plants is blue-purple, either blue or purple.

This is because high altitude is an environment with strong ultraviolet rays, and plants need to accumulate more anthocyanins in the flowers to resist ultraviolet rays, so many blue-purple flowers are produced, and even flowers with deep purple to close to black appear, such as Primula, Fritillaria, and many Compositae.

However, it is difficult to cultivate this kind of close-black flowers on flat ground, and it takes many years to do cross breeding.

  When we watch some highland documentaries, we also notice that the flowers on the mountains are very large. If we give us a bunch of explanatory materials, we will probably see them in the clouds.

For this kind of science, @顾有容 will use several plants as examples, such as "Meconopsis pseudo-beautiful", which lives on high mountain streams and rocks. A plant can have more than a dozen flowers, and each flower may be seven in diameter. Eight centimeters, the leaves under the flower are completely invisible after flowering.

This is to attract the attention of pollinators. "However, flowering is a particularly heavy burden for alpine plants. It cannot bloom so many flowers every year. Like Meconopsis, it is'one perennial. 'Flowering' plants will only grow leaves for many years, and store the energy accumulated by photosynthesis in the storage roots. If enough is stored, they will burst out a lot of very large flowers in the last year. After the seeds mature, The whole plant is dead.” @顾有容 said that this is a way for alpine plants to efficiently allocate resources for the purpose of reproduction. This can be described as “years of accumulation, Towards exhaustion".

  It’s the season when the word "long trousers" frequently appears in the middle of the year. The northern cities have already started heating, and southerners have to wear long trousers. In the high mountains, low temperature and severe cold and strong wind are the norm, so many plants will also consciously "Wear long trousers and sweaters."

  @顾有容 gives an example, the jellyfish snow rabbit is like a little rabbit squatting there, with long and thin hair. If you put your fingers in the bushes of hair, you will find that the inside is particularly warm, like Tuck your hand into a woolen glove.

Of course, it is also very "smart". Since woolen pants and sweaters cannot be thrown away, it also needs to be pollinated by flowers. In order to facilitate insect pollination, its flowers are at the top, and the fragrance of the flowers is increased to increase the possibility of being discovered by insects.

  Some plants simply grow the whole plant into a thick mat, which is called "cushion plant" in botany.

@顾有容 Takes the plateau point Dimei as an example. Its mat is formed by a lot of shortened and densely packed stems. The surface of the stem is some leaves that can carry out photosynthesis. There are many rotting leaves inside the mat. It has a thermal insulation effect, "If you take a thermometer to measure, you will find that the temperature inside the mat may be as much as 10 degrees higher than the ambient temperature outside."

Popular science articles "have a sense of internet", not derogatory

  Can you imagine that Internet words like "stalk" can also be used in popular science articles?

Recently, @顾有容 posted a few pictures on Weibo, which are the result of his hitting rocks on the mountain. "Even the'rotten stems' of ferns can be kept for 300 million years as long as they are printed on rocks."

  The term "bad stem" is familiar to us modern Internet people. It has no connotation and is used by others.

And @顾有容 said that in botany, the stalk is a structure of petiole, flower stalk, fruit stalk, etc. After it rots, there will be vascular bundles left, precisely because of this kind of hard thick-walled cells. The structure of the structure, the image of the plant has the opportunity to be printed on the stone, even after hundreds of millions of years of time washing, it is still distinct.

  In the opinion of @顾有容, the popular science article "Internet probation" is not derogatory.

He believes that having a sense of the Internet means that these popular science texts can be seen and accepted by ordinary netizens and are willing to take the initiative to disseminate them. Since the media era, we have set our own way. Everyone knows what kind of information will be disseminated, and popular science people must adapt to this. "I am also a layman. There are some expressions on the Internet. I will be very happy when I read it. Therefore, in order to ensure the ideological and correctness of the science content, it is necessary to be close to the Internet in form. "

  @顾有容 also emphasized to reporters that Internet sense is not a random fabrication and brain supplement. The content of popular science cannot be original. It comes from conclusive documentation. Just like alpine plants seem so special and even wise, they are not. Wisdom in the true sense is the result of millions of years of evolution.

Under the effect of increased external pressure, the unsuitable plants died long ago. After multiple screenings such as low temperature and severe cold, these are left behind.

From the current perspective, we only see the results after the screening, that is, now, and the evolution in the middle is very long, so he described the current results in an innovative and networked way when popularizing science.